


Promise me

by Entomancy



Series: Gods and Monsters [1]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Gen, Shadow of Israphel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entomancy/pseuds/Entomancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is going very wrong in this little world he so enjoys. Ridge can’t actually see the future – but perhaps there are others who can.<br/>(Set just before SoI.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise me

The carnival was never truly quiet, even this late. Wind gossiped around the creaking struts of the rollercoaster and scattered bright shards from the still-burning torches; canvas shifted and snapped against its anchors, and the faint drift of animal noises filtered in from behind the main tents.

No one heard him arrive, dropping down from the chill evening sky with the suddenness of summer lightning, to land with a surprisingly-light step outside one of the larger tents. The cheerful blue-and-yellow awning was a stark contrast to the figure that now approached; his long coat cast out slightly behind him, as if moving to a different breeze than the night-chill that failed to stir even one curl of hair from across his forehead. His dark gaze – made liquid by the flickering torchlight – swept across the cluster of canvas shapes, finding nothing of interest, and he caught onto the curtain of the large tent, and ducked inside.

The interior was warmly lit, metal lanterns casting a soft glow across the fabric-draped surfaces, gleaming with beads and intricate woven threadwork. What furniture was present was pushed up against the walls, heavy with ornaments and decorative curios, all given a glistening patina by the lamplight. Halfway down the room, low chairs clustered around a small table, swathed in smooth velvet and scattered with more trinkets – although the arrangement of these had a more deliberate air to them.

Ridge smiled.

“Good evening, Madame Nubescu.”

The figure sat behind the table didn’t look up. Long braids of ebony hair were gathered loosely behind her head, spilling down over her shawl-wrapped shoulders, and the soft lamplight gave her dark skin a bronzed sheen at the edges. Ridge strolled forwards, as she spoke.

“It be late out for wanderin’.” Her voice was quite deep and rougher at the edges than her years would suggest, the words wrapped thickly in an accent no more local than his own – although for distinctly different reasons. Ridge’s smile widened.

“Well, I – ” he reached out as he spoke, to trace idly across some of the nearest shelf of assorted baubles – but cut off as his fingers met the cool surface of a small crystal ball, and there was a harsh, high sound, like crushing glass, and he blinked.

A network of turquoise-bright lines had sprung into place around his extended hand, unfurling suddenly from the little ball to web themselves around his fingers. There didn’t seem to be any true _sensation_ from the shimmering threads, but there was a weight to them in other senses; a faint, a displaced echo that spread around his fingertips like a thick liquid. Not much, and certainly not a cause for serious concern – but that it was there at all was interesting enough.

"There're those who might think you a _little_ bit paranoid, for a circus performer," he remarked, twirling his hand inside the web and watching the patterns writhe against his skin. Nubescu finally looked up. There was a gleam to her heavy gaze, as she reached down and fanned a sheath of cards out across the table in front of her.

"And there're those thinkin' I can’t be recognisin' a god-touched in me own home," she replied, sharply. "You got the look of a deathly one t'me."

"And if I am?" Ridge swung the encased hand around in front of him a few times, watching the web stretch along with his movements. There was a definite numbness to the contact points now, as if the little lines were very slowly constricting against him, letting nerve sensation through, but little else. "Is this supposed to stop me?"

"No." Nubescu shrugged, and the beads in her shawl tinkled at the movement. "I'm not so foolish to be thinkin' I got you any more'n tickled." She looked back up and this time held his gaze, setting her jaw very deliberately. "But I know what'cha are, an' I'd have _you_ know dat."

Her fingers were tight against the cards, paling at the knuckles, but there was no shake in her hands and she regarded him almost haughtily over the little table. Ridge sat down opposite her, settling into the softness of the other velvet-upholstered stool, and met that gaze carefully. He twitched his fingers with a little more _effort_ , and the constricting spell broke with a faint, crystalline tinkle. Nubescu tilted her head, very deliberately not looking at the glass ball, which had dulled to a smoked grey.

"So," she said coolly. "What you be wantin' from me, godling?"

Ridge's eyes narrowed, just a little, at the term, but he overrode the expression with a smile. It wasn't one of his more reassuring ones. He reached down and laid one long finger against the nearest card, brushing gently across the textured surface.

"I want you to tell me a fortune," he said, quietly. Nubescu made a small sound that might have been a snort.

"It don't work so well on those that make 'em."

Ridge laughed and leaned back, resting against the air.

"It’s not mine that I want."

The fortune-teller looked at him, hard. It was unusual enough that anyone managed to keep their gaze entirely fixed on him – people generally started to get uncomfortable after a few moments of direct focus – but this was one of the most _assessing_ stares Ridge had been exposed to for quite a while. Her dark eyes scanned down him, as if measuring, from the upmost curl of hair to the gleaming tips of his boots, and her lips thinned slightly.

“I don’t suppose you’ll be tellin’ me why a thing like you be needin’ this?”

“My skills lie… elsewhere. And I’m feeling so _very_ curious.” He swept paired fingers around in the air, drawing a lazy arc that managed to gesture to most of the closed-in room in one gesture. “Money is no object.”

At that, Nubescu started slightly. A brief flicker of something danced across her face, but it settled into irritation quickly enough.

"I charge by what's they can afford. For you?" She leaned forward very suddenly, and jabbed one long-nailed finger towards him at heart-height. "De cost's a promise."

"No." Ridge's reply was very short, almost a snap, but the woman just smiled, and a hint of silver flashed at the sides of her mouth.

"Den you can up and walk outa here, god-touched or no. You knows as well as I – dis can't be _taken;_ only give or barter, and I'm not so inclined t'the first. You got my price now. You choose whether to be payin' it."

Silence fell, spreading out between the two figures like an oil in the air, seeming to wash up all the more heavily against the curtained walls of the tent. Nubescu slid her hand across the table again, pushing the cards into another lazy spiral, and splayed her fingers across them as she looked up at Ridge from under thickened lashes. He watched her, considering options.

"That's a little old fashioned, isn't it?"

"You'd be knowin' about dat."

Ridge let his fingers drum against the table top. The sound of each beat was slightly off compared to the impact, but if Nubescu noticed, she didn't seem to feel the need to comment.

"A promise is expensive."

"You’re welcome t'go elsewhere."

Ridge drew his hand back, and tried not to sigh. Honestly. Precognition had never been one of his skills – for various reasons – but it was irritatingly useful, even for him, to make use of it sometimes. And he would admit to himself, if not to anyone else, it was rare to find a mortal with quite such a grasp on the concept. But she just would have to be one of the _sharp_ ones, wouldn’t she?

His eyes narrowed.

"It won't change anything you've already seen," he said softly. "By any means. Even the slightest peek, and it'll be fixed. I can't change what's already been determined."

"Can't, or won't?" Nubescu raised one plucked brow, and Ridge grinned around his reply.

"A little of both." He held out one hand, palm up, and the air glittered above it, spiralling inwards to coalesce into a tiny ball of raw golden light. Nubescu's eyes fixed on the gleaming shape, but Ridge half-closed his hand, encasing the light in a cage of fingers.

"One call. And there are _limits_ to this. I won't be flattening cities for you."

Their gazes locked again, as the moment stretched out – then she nodded.

"Alright."

Ridge opened his hand again and Nubescu reached out, plucked the little ball of golden promise from the air and swallowed it in one smooth movement. Ridge sat back as the dark woman stiffened for a second, little muscles twitching under her skin, then laid her flattened hands back down over the cards.

"Show me," she muttered, and the finest traceries of gilden light curled out either side of her mouth. Ridge could feel the pull against his own power – very slight, but noticeably there, as the magic began to unwind – and he leaned forward slightly as her hands started to move. "Who it be for?"

"Antioch."

"Which - ?"

"All of them."

Nubescu glanced up sharply, half-opening her mouth for a rebuke, but then her expression twitched and her eyes widened – suddenly unfocusing – as the golden gleam began to twist in their depths. Her shoulders stiffened, head dropping down, and the sweeping movements of the cards began to take on a strangely frantic motion, spiralling so fast that at times the flattened shapes may well have passed through each other; and then she began to speak.

Ridge listened. Here in the torchlit velvet of these canvas walls, as words bled and spat from the fortune teller's lips, His own multi-level attention folded down around them in almost its entirety, drawing meaning from the air. He listened, to everything she said and everything she didn't, watching with the other's eyes as her peculiar skill cut patterns in the shifting fog of possibility, tracing shapes of potential into the future.

He hadn't expected it to be _good_ news, but the sheer, seething weight to the darkness there, balanced so precariously on the fine threads of that potential, shocked him a little. Even the words, the _description_ of what awaited just beyond dawn's edge seemed to pull down on the firelight around them, until even Ridge felt a faint shiver crawling up his neck.

The last card turned, fell against the table with a muffled click, and Nubescu snapped its name like a guttural curse before she fell silent. Ridge leaned over and pressed his fingertips gently to her sweat-beaded forehead, as he drew the coil of power back – but left the oath there, curled like a snake around the base of her mind.

He paid his debts. That was how it _worked_ , after all.

Nubescu didn’t move as he stood up, offering a slight nod down at her hunched-over form, and headed back towards the entrance. He was just reaching for the tent door when she finally spoke again – throat still audibly raw – and he turned.

“It be worth it?” She was still staring down at the cards, and there was a wet-bright gleam in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “What you do?”

Ridge hesitated. There were some concepts that it really was hard to get into adequate mortal words. Nothing seemed to fit properly.

“Yes,” he settled for, eventually, and she looked up, glancing between him and the lain cards with an intensity that was faintly discomforting.

“And when _that_ be the price? Will it all be worth it then, for you, godling?” Her tone was harsh again, either accusatory or angry, Ridge couldn’t quite tell which. He looked back at the table, at the little semi-circle of half-cast futures – and shrugged.

“Guess I’ll find out.”

He ducked outside again, letting the curtain fall back, followed by a muttered _‘Mind that you do’._ The rest of the circus was as empty as when he had arrived and he stepped into the air, shrugging off the boring hold of gravity as the night folded closed around him.

The carnival dropped away, quickly becoming little more than a torchlit smear in the darkness below, but Ridge found himself folding his arms, gripping a little more tightly against the fine fabric of his own sleeves than he usually did. There was a tiny – _tiny_ – twist of uncertainty within him now; alien and isolated inside the fires of him, but definitely there.

For all his grinning assurance, for all that the plays and little dramas of this chosen world amused him…

This was going bad. Very bad.

The question was whether he was going to _care_. And what he could actually do about it, if he did.

-


End file.
